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Ian Warwick is managing partner at Deepbridge Capital and is responsible for the direction and strategy of Deepbridge. He is a successful entrepreneur and CEO with over two decades of experience in leading private and public companies and has successfully led the turnaround, re-capitalisation and listing of several businesses. When launching Deepbridge, Ian recognised the tax-efficient investment space was fundamentally flawed and was driven to develop a more investor-focussed market.

With Article 50 now triggered and the countdown to Britain leaving the European Union having begun, what might we expect with regard to the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS)?

Investing via EIS has never been more commonplace and never have financial advisers had so much demand from investors. The reason for this is partly a desire to find tax-efficient investment opportunities to replace increasingly limited pension savings.

The term 'capital preservation' is often banded around within tax-efficient investment circles, but often with differing meanings. This can therefore often lead to confusion for advisers and investors alike.

As far as I am concerned there are effectively three ways in which the term capital preservation can be interpreted, or has been misappropriated, and I believe it is important that financial advisers and investors understand which of these is being used when considering such propositions.

One of the recurring themes preached by myself and my colleagues is the importance of sector experience when managing growing businesses. Operating in the tax-efficient investment space, including via the enterprise investment scheme, we invest our clients' subscriptions in to unquoted companies which are at varying stages of their life cycle.

Like the Dog’s Trust adverts used to say, 'a dog is not just for Christmas,' there remains a misconception that EIS investments (and other tax-efficient investments) should only be considered at tax year end. This is not the case and EIS is ‘not just for tax year end.’

The tax planning opportunities for investors to utilise tax-efficient investments throughout the year are considerable and should form part of any financial adviser's review meeting with their client.

According to HMRC data, during the 2014/15 tax year the amount raised by UK companies seeking funding via the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) was a record £1.7bn.

Read up on the tax-efficient opportunities arising after the UK's decision to leave the European Union

Read up on the tax-efficient opportunities arising from the UK's decision to leave the European Union

If anybody witnessed my Facebook profile during June they will appreciate that I was keen for the UK to remain part of the EU. However, the voice of the nation has spoken and we now enter a new world. I have no doubt that in the long term the UK will continue to be a prosperous and enviable economy but my greatest pre-referendum fear was about the short term uncertainty.

The report’s adviser survey shows that 61% of advisers expect to see their use of EIS or SEIS increase over the next twelve months, with only 2% saying they expect to use such products less. Similarly, 57% of investors surveyed expect to invest more in such propositions over the next five years.

In Bill Bryson’s latest book he refers to a Japanese report that concluded 55 per cent of ‘significant’ inventions since the Second World War were created by the British, compared to 6 per cent the Japanese themselves and 21 per cent by Americans.

We should of course be aware that statistics can often be misappropriated (as the likes of Benjamin Disraeli and Mark Twain would agree) but the overarching sentiment is that for a small island we have an unbelievable track record of inventing ‘stuff’.